Like gods, Apple gave us the Airport Express. Tom and I both looked at it and started pondering. He then decided it was a task worthy of me, and told me to "get busy."

As usual, I called Evan and gave him the scoop. Luckily, he knew someone at the Smithsonian whose job was to make all the acrylic display cases for the museums. Excellent! Evan headed out to Reed Plastics and picked up the materials, came by the shop and grabbed my designs, and then headed off in search of a box.

Several days later, we were gifted with what I can only describe as the most perfectly formed plastic box I've ever seen. Perfectly shaped and glued, I was in awe. It was about this time that Evan took a sander to the box and our acrylic pole in order to frost them. I headed out to the home depot for stand components and electrical needs.

Once the sanding was complete, holes for the retention bolt and mounting the pole were dremeled into the box. The acrylic pole was set in place with high grade epoxy, the bolt was painted white with epoxy primer, and water proofing was run around all the open seams. The complete assembly was then set into a large plastic planter filled with white marble stones.

I then cut electrical access holes in the tube, added rubber weather stoppers, and ran electrical cord through the tube, up to the box. An Airport Express, along with a string of white christmas lights.

As the pictures show, the whole thing looked good. However, Jason's ponderous look led us to think it could use more. I decided it needed more lights, and something snappy for the box. I cut apart two broken LCD panels, and fished out the Diffusion plastics. I then cut them to shape, and lined the box with them. 2 more strings of lights were added to the box, as well as a strand going down the tube.

Once all of this was complete, the whole thing was dragged (base weighs a ton) out to my patio for testing. The unit was much brighter and sparklier. Once bridged with the existing airport network, it was quite well connected too.

For the sake of being thorough, I'll address a couple of questions as well. Firstly, why didnt we hard wire the Airport Express? Simple. Who knows what apple will do next. If they put out something better, it can just be swapped in. Second, the christmas lights. Why christmas lights? Well, they were on hand. I have tons of them, so it was an easy choice. Similarly, if I want the box to glow different colors, or blink, etc, all I have to do is switch out the lights. Lastly, why build such a monstrosity at all? Dont make me slap you. Its tall, its plastic, it glows, and it connects you to the internet. Last time I checked, the raccoon in us all seemed to like tall glowy internety things. So, uh, yeah. Did I mention that it glows?

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